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A taste of the old stuff

There is a special ring in Hell for those who steal another man’s booze. (This ring doesn’t apply if it’s your parents’ stash.)

Let’s start off with the legend of the hidden hootch. As Prohibition approached, rich families across the country began stocking up on liquor while they still could. And J.P. Brennan of Pennsylvania was no different. He ordered cases of rye whiskey distilled in 1912 and hid it in his mansion’s walls. Some of it was consumed during Prohibition, but some of it survived and was forgotten until last year, when some of the century-old whiskey was found during a renovation.

The bottles were valued at just over $100,000, and after a short time, they started to go missing. The live-in caretaker was immediately suspected, but denied all charges. He was charged when police matched a DNA sample on one of the bottles to him.

His crime seems reasonable. Could you sleep at night, knowing that there were cases of rye, mellowed for a century, just sitting there?